Across the Fading Sky
by Snapped Chopstick
Summary: Movieverse. Sam, Bumblebee, and the consequences of time. Slash in themes, but only if you squint.


Sometimes, in the dusk (those magical, Earthly hours when time seemed to slow and everything glowed), he let himself remember. He let himself reach towards the memories he kept locked hidden, deep inside, and watched them unfurl like a shy flower facing the sun.

They were fond memories, but sad. Sweet, and still bitter. Happy in the way one is happy at the end of an era - smiling even though your stomach is churning and you don't think you can hold back the tears.

The feeling (a comforting weight, warm hands) of his boy climbing into him, the sound of his boy's breathless laughter (exhilarated and desperate) when they took a curve especially fast. The way his boy would lean against him after he transformed, always - always - placing his hand gingerly on one hard, metal leg. That hand was his boy's way of asking permission, of saying silently "I want to be close to you." It was Sam's little revealing habit, the one that spoke of awkward thoughts and feelings and words that were never, ever, spoken out loud. They didn't need to say them. They both understood.

Even the memories that didn't involve his boy Sam exclusively were carefully kept, carefully treasured. Mikaela often joined them on the numerous rides through uncharted lands, her hands tensing on the door-grip and seatbelt. She got scared sometimes but refused to show it (he could tell though, he could _feel_ her heart thudding like a rabbit's in her delicate body) and would cover it up with her laugh. Slender little feet in precarious shoes would push nervously at his floor, but she'd laugh and laugh and laugh, as though the act of laughing alone forced the fear away.

Maybe it did. It was something he never talked to her about.

He remembered them in silence, saying nothing in his remembrance just as he had said nothing when they kissed on top of him, inside of him, beside him. He felt like the silence was important. The silence let them be together, be alone, without even the hum of his radio to distract them.

When their days together had become months together, he could not tell. The months became years, eventually (as they were wont to do), and he found himself less a joyride and more a mode of transportation. Sam got lots of compliments on his car at university, and the compliments continued when he was parking his friend in his reserved space at the office.

("I'm sorry, Bee, I really could take the bus instead so you could stay at home with 'Kaela--"

"Nonsense, Sam. You know I'm happy to do this for you.")

The children. Now they had been a shock. Two of them, a year apart in age, running sticky fingers over his upholstery and giggling loudly. Mikaela had been there almost instantaneously, groaning and tugging the young ones away firmly. His experience with very young humans was limited at best, but increased exponentially with his exposure to Mikaela and Sam's offspring. A boy and a girl (and wasn't _that_ just the perfect little family), the girl the older of the two, the boy the more mischievous, and both of them loved their weird uncle the car. He'd play them songs and tell them stories, but for some reason could never bring himself to transform in front of them. 

Then they were all grown up.

At first when he'd noticed it he had thought that there was some sort of mistake in his processor. But then he realised that Sam had been getting older, Mikaela had been laughing less, and the children weren't taking so many rides with him because they had both gotten jobs and bought their own cars and were making their own monthly payments. Sometimes Sam would just come to the garage and sit in the driver's seat, running withered hands over the still-supple leather.

("Do you want to go to the overlook, Sam?"

"Not today. Let's just sit right here. I'm tired...")

His boy was no longer a boy. Before long (it seemed like a _nanosecond_ to him, it was so _unfair_) his boy was simply no more. Mikaela kept along until shortly after her eighth decade, and then quietly followed Sam.

It was then that he simply disappeared for a while. Even the loss of Cybertron had not compared to this, the losing of his little family that he had felt so strongly for. He knew that their lives had been long for humans, but it still seemed like no time (not enough time, never enough time, too short too bright too hot too _sad_) at all had passed before his boy had been ripped cruelly from him. When his self-imposed exile was finished, he had returned to Optimus and endeavored to pretend like he would ever be able stop mourning.

"Bumblebee."

The memories turned to static in his mind as he faced his commander. The other Autobot stood less than a hundred feet away, ridiculous-looking in his contrast with the trees behind him but still somehow magnificent.

"Ratchet has detected an energy not far from this planet that is similar to the Allspark." Optimus paused, waiting to see if his subordinate had something to say. When he said nothing

(And didn't that hurt to think about, a silent Bumblebee like after his confrontation with Megatron, vocal emitters sparking weakly like a last sobbing testament to the danger he had put himself in)

the larger Autobot continued. "I've decided to go investigate. I want you to come with me."

It hung thick in the air, the real reason Optimus Prime wanted the other 'bot with him. _You are unwell, you mourn the fleshlings too deeply, this will distract you._ It, much like the ages-old but still fresh memory of Sam's silent plea for closeness, did not need to be spoken aloud. In a very real way Bumblebee was grateful. Perhaps if he went away, away from this little world with its little people that worked so hard to break his heart (it seemed), he could once again become whole.

(So hard to become whole when you're leaving a little - but so very big - piece of yourself buried in the dirt behind you.)

He nodded at Optimus and that seemed to satisfy him, because he didn't say anything else. They stood together then, in the last vestiges of the sunlight. They stood and watched the sky fade, and Bumblebee remembered.

("Sam, I must confess to loving... these sunsets. We... did not have them on Cybertron. Not like this." Which is not what he meant to say, but even giant robots have failings of courage. Even ones as brave as he.

"Yeah, they're nice, huh? It's like the sky is fading away. Fading away and burning away at the same time." Fading, and burning. So like his boy.)

And in his memories, he was infinitely happy, but infinitely sad.

-End


End file.
